


Someone Walking Besides Me

by La_Reveuse (Lune_qui_vit_dans_ses_Reves)



Series: To Dream is to be Free [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 07:27:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3438686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lune_qui_vit_dans_ses_Reves/pseuds/La_Reveuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dream was over. She had escaped and a new future lay before her, one where she was able to make her own choices. He had woken up and although the world had changed during his time in the ice, he was determined to make the most out of his second chance. </p>
<p>There was no need for the dream to exist. But with one simple game, everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Walking Besides Me

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't end the story on such a bittersweet note, so here is the sequel. :) 
> 
> As before, I do not own any of the characters or references that you may recognize. I do on the other hand own all of the grammatical errors, and I apologize before hand if you see any!

“What are you guys doing?” Tony asked his voice carrying across the whole, eerily quiet room and echoing off the walls, which only served to further enhance the volume of his question and break the silence that had stretched across the room.

 

“Shh!” Bruce and Clint hissed, turning to glare at him so quickly that he was surprised that neither of them got whiplash and then turning away from him again.

 

“We’re watching Cap and Nat play chess.” Clint explained keeping his voice to a whisper, never removing his eyes from the battle of wits that was taking place right before his eyes.

 

“No really. What are you doing?” Tony asked again, not lowering his voice as he couldn’t believe that a mere game of chess had managed to capture both Hawkeye and the Hulk’s attention.

 

“We’re really watching them play chess, Tony.” Bruce said, his voice warning Tony to keep his down.

 

“Really?” Tony asked peering around them, and seeing that there, right before his eyes were Captain America and the Black Widow sitting on the ground, a coffee table situated between the pair bearing a simple black and white wooden chess set. This, he had to see he decided as he made himself comfortable on one of the plush sofas that were scattered around the room.

 

“Hey Jarvis.” He called quietly, “Can you get us some popcorn? This is going to be good.”

 

“Of course Master Stark.” The AI responded, a hit of humor playing in his robotic voice.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

“You’re not bad,” Natasha commented as she waited for Steve to make his move. They were pretty evenly matched although he still had both his knights and she had a few more pawns than he did.

 

“Thanks.” Steve replied as he moved one the three pawns that had been protecting his castled king.

 

“For a fossil.” Natasha added as one of her pawns captured yet another one of his pawns.

 

“Hmm…” He considered which piece to move. “If I’m a fossil, does that make you a child?” He asked as he moved his knight to capture one of her unprotected pawns.

 

She subconsciously crinkled her nose at the name child and ignored the urge to roll her eyes at him and say “my name’s Natasha, not child!” Smiling she moved her pawn to the last space on Steve’s side and shot him a dazzling smile. “Don’t discount the pawns Steve. They may look like insignificant little pieces, but give them enough time and they become the most important piece on the board.”

 

Hearing that, something that sounded so very familiar to him, something that for some reason he could hear himself saying just like that, he couldn’t help but smile and murmur, “Of course not Tasha.”

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

When the match was finally over, Natasha had just barely won, Tony took Clint over to the opposite side of the room, beyond what he knew was the hearing range of the Black Widow and Captain America.

 

“Has Natasha ever played chess before?” He asked Clint.

 

Clint looked at Tony, questioning why he was asking him that and not asking the woman who had just finished playing the game, but gave it some consideration. “No,” He finally said. “I’ve never seen Natasha play a game of chess before.”

 

“Hmm…” was all Tony said as a strange look appeared on his face.

 

“Hmm what?” Clint asked. Tony had two types of hmms – The hmm when he had a crazy plan and the hmm when he was trying to contemplate a question that he had no answer for. Typically the second led to the first and it made him worry that Tony was going to do something that perhaps wasn’t the best idea.

 

“My father never mentioned that Captain America played chess and good grief, he never shut up about that man.”

 

“So?” Clint prompted Tony, still not sure where he was going with this, but not wanting to be responsible for Tony’s death if he was going to do something that got on Nat’s nerves.

 

“So, I played a lot of chess growing up. It’s a good way to pass time.” He explained when he saw Clint’s expression. “And the way that Cap and the Black Widow were playing today, well that, that takes years of practice. Some of those moves and strategies they were using, I’ve only seen them used by masters.”

 

“So you’re saying that Steve and Nat are undercover chess masters?” Clint clarified.

 

“I’m just saying that Steve and Natasha are exceptionally good chess players. Too good actually. Far too good to have never played before and especially to have not battled each other.” Tony elucidated.

 

“What’s so special about how they played each other?” Clint asked sensing that Tony wanted someone to bounce a crazy theory off of or simply to just listen to him.

 

“You saw the way they were playing, right?” He asked staring at the board that Natasha had set up after they had finished playing.

 

“Yes?” Clint asked once again wondering where Tony was going with his questions.

 

“They anticipated every move.” Tony finally revealed. “It was like a well choreographed dance, an extremely well oiled machine or the perfect sparring match. Natasha knew exactly what Steve was going to do and he knew exactly where she was going to move. It was incredible.” His voice filling with wonder as he seemed to dissect the board into tiny squares with his eyes, searching for a way to figure out how they had played so well.

 

“So maybe they’re just extremely talented and lucky novice chess players.” Clint offered as his theory. “It wouldn’t surprise me if that were the case. This is Steve and Nat we’re talking about.”

 

“No, no. I think it’s something else, something more.” Tony replied as he walked over to the chessboard and picked up one of Steve’s black pawns Natasha had been playing with, theory after theory running through his head. “It has to be something else.”

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

While perhaps it had appeared to Tony that Clint hadn’t been paying any attention to his observations, in reality, he had been listening and his own brain had been trying to fit together pieces of the puzzle that he alone knew. So once Tony had been distracted enough to allow him to disappear without Tony noticing, he took his chance and left. He had a puzzle that needed to be put together, a puzzle that had been created when Tony had mentioned that Natasha and Steve had seemed far too familiar with each other in the way that they played. While he knew Natasha didn’t seem to remember very much from that fateful night, the night she first started to make her own calls, he, on the other hand, remembered everything.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

Natasha rarely stargazed. In all the years that they had been partners, Clint had only seen her gaze up at the night sky for leisure once, and that had been the night she had chosen to join S.H.I.E.L.D. She had always preferred to watch the clouds rather than to try and decipher the constellations that seemed to tease them from up above, yet there she was, sitting on her windowsill, staring out into the vast ocean of darkness.

 

“What are you doing Nat?”

 

“Huh?” She startled at his question. “Nothing. Just looking, I guess.” She shrugged her shoulders.

 

“They are pretty, aren’t they?” He asked trying to get a sense of where she was – she hadn’t heard or sensed him approaching her, a very rare event that typically signaled something was amiss.

 

“Oh. Yes, they are pretty.” Her voice conveying just how very far away she was from New York, the Tower, and her partner.

 

He figured that he should probably stop beating around the bush and just get to asking the question he needed answered after which he would leave her alone to her thoughts. “You’ve never played chess before, right Nat?”

 

Natasha shook her head, keeping her eyes locked on the stars that could be seen even over the brightness of the city. “Not that I remember.” A small half smile forming as the right side of her mouth pulled up ever so slightly. In the window her reflection mirrored her action, a reflection that looked nothing like the Black Widow façade that she put on while working and more like the young girl he had seen that night, the night his whole life had changed with one single decision.

 

“Have you ever,” She paused, searching for the right words, “Have you ever felt like something was real, so very real but you couldn’t remember what it was from, or if it really was real or if it was just a dream or day dream you had invented to keep yourself sane?” The words, once they had been found, coming out in such a rush that if they had been a river, they would have swept away everything that lay in their path.

 

“Not in the way I think you’re referring to.” He whispered as he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her hair. “Keep thinking about it Nat. I know you’ll figure it out.” What she had asked him had indicated that his theory had been correct, and while he wanted nothing more than to tell Natasha what it was, he knew she needed to figure it out on her own. Besides, he wasn’t sure she remembered enough for everything to fall into place and make sense or for her to believe that he was telling her his theory and not simply a fairytale.

 

As Natasha gazed up at the sky, the stars twinkling up above, she could see a man dressed in red, white and blue holding out his hand to her, offering her a chess piece. “This is called a pawn…” But she had never played chess before, had she? That was what she had told Clint. Also, she had most definitely never sat down in a valley surrounded by the most beautiful trees she had ever seen, the sun shining down on them, on a boulder that was far more confortable than some of the chairs that S.H.I.E.L.D. issued, playing chess with a man she had never seen in the Red Room. No. She knew that he was far too kind, too understanding, and far too good to have been part of the Red Room. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she knew that that was true. But if he hadn’t been part of the Red Room, then who was he, why was he there and where in the world were they? And why, why did it seem so real to her when she knew it could only possibly be a figment of her imagination?

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

Unknown to Natasha another person also stood basking in the soft glow of the stars above and the city below. He had escaped to his room after Tony had found him and peppered him with a million questions about chess. No, he had never really played before. Yes, he “knew” how to play, but those were simply the rules and what the pieces were and how they could move around the board. No, he hadn’t played during his 70-year nap. He couldn’t remember anything he had dreamed about while he slept, so how could he knew if he had “played” chess as he slept. No, no he wasn’t a super computer that could play chess by himself while he slept. He left Tony, rambling and mumbling statistics, trying to solve what he thought was a puzzle, by himself soon after. He had stopped understanding what Tony had been saying soon after he mumbled “alternate universe… statistically…”

 

That had brought him to his window. He stood, coffee cup in one hand, the other toying with a knight, staring out his window. He was forever amazed by how much New York had changed while he had slept frozen in ice. Gone was the city he had know, the city that he had grown up in with Bucky by his side, and in its place sat great monsters of buildings so tall that if he were standing at the bottom of one of them, he’d have to stare straight up to even attempt to see the bright shining sun. But the questions Tony had asked him did make him wonder how he had known so much about chess. Before the war there had hardly been time to play and during the war, even less time. He and Bucky had played once or twice and if he had ever gotten the nerve up, he had been planning on asking Peggy if she would like to spare her poor toes and dance around a different wooden floor with him. He smiled imaging her sitting across from him, a battle of wits taking place. Yet it wasn’t her face that appeared in his mind. No, rather than the smiling face of Agent Peggy Carter, a young girl sat across from him, her face one of quiet consideration, her nose crinkled as she stared at the board contemplating her next move.

 

Steve opened the eyes he hadn’t even been aware had closed. What was that? Better yet, who was that? Even with his eyes opened and gazing at the city that never slept, he imagined her standing next to him. Her childlike voice amazed as she stared at what appeared before her. “Isn’t it wonderful Steve? I told you it was going to be wonderful.” A smile appearing on her face, her green eyes lighting up, and her crimson ringlets curling around her face as she turned to face him. “It’s okay Steve. It’s okay to not know. Everything will be all right. I know it will be.” She threw her arms around him, his arms moving to gently cradle her, and pressed her cheek to his, her touch as light and gentle as a feather. Then with a quick and somewhat bashful kiss to his cheek, she disappeared.

 

What had just occurred? He wondered to himself as he found himself cradling air. He pressed his hand to his cheek searching for any remnants of warmth that she may have left as proof that he hadn’t imagined her. That had never happened before, right? He thought as he stopped his search and instead lifted his eyes from the city that stood in front of him to night sky that lay above him. “That’s Polaris, child.” He could hear himself telling someone.

 

No, surely now he was hallucinating. Tony must have slipped something into his coffee as a joke. Yet it had been real, hadn’t it? The stargazing, the little girl with the sad smile and scarlet ringlets, the chess games? But how could it be real? He had spent 70 years alone, encased in ice. No one had been with him on that doomed plane, and if there had been someone, they would have died a long time ago. He knew that. Or did he? She seemed so real that surely he couldn’t have made her up.

 

He turned so quickly that had it been someone else they would have given themselves whiplash, sat on his coach, and placing the black knight across from him, picked up his sketchpad and began to draw.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

Natasha stayed seated on her window and opened her hand. In it lay a single white pawn and the white queen. Setting them down next to her, she drew her knees to her chest and returned her gaze to the dark blue ocean that claimed the heavens; her eyes instinctively searching connect the stars to form Ursa Minor. “That’s Polaris, child.” The voice she sometimes imagined told her.

 

“I wish, I wish I knew who you were and why you seem so important.” She whispered, her voice as quiet as the gentle twinkle of the stars smiling up above.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

He stared at the young woman who had appeared on the pad, so lifelike before him. _Who was she?_ He wondered.

 

“I don’t know who you are, but I know you’re important.” He told her, his voice strong, yet kind, as if her were talking to a child.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

“I wish I could remember you. I think sometimes I remember, but then it’s gone as if a dream.” She explained, her eyes falling on the picture of her team that lay on the mantle that Tony had insisted they take.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

He gently touched the red curl that hugged the girl’s face as if to push it back behind her ear. “I don’t know why I remember you or even where you’re from.” He confessed.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

“But, I wish, I wish I could see you again to know that you were real. I miss you.” She quietly confided to the little white pawn that now balanced carefully on her palm.

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

“I don’t know why I miss you, but I just hope whoever you are, wherever you are, and whatever you became, you are happy.” He said to the mysterious young woman, a smile appearing on his face as he heard a girlish voice giggling and biding him to race her. 

 

\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

 

A small smile appeared on Natasha’s face as she held up the white marble queen to the night sky, creating an ethereal glow around it as the stars beamed down on it. “I wish I could tell you thank you. Thank you for everything. I don’t know what you did, but I think, no I know it was important. Life may not have turned out exactly the was I planned, but I am happy.” And then, in the back of her mind, a part she had no control over nor could hear, whispered, “I am happy Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this chapter, and I hope you enjoyed it. Have a wonderful day! :)


End file.
